


some unholy war

by breakeven



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Couple, Murder Husbands, Secret Identity, Sexual Content, Spies & Secret Agents, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22281259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breakeven/pseuds/breakeven
Summary: “So,” Coulson begins, “let’s jump right in, shall we? How long have you two been married?”James says, “Six years,” at the same time Steve says, “Five years.” They both pause, but neither of them looks at each other. James can feel his hackles rise, and he knows that Steve can too. Steve is probably scared. Good, he should be. Well, not good, but good that he knows he’s fucked up.(stevebucky Mr. & Mrs. Smith au.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 19
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thank me later.

The room is stuffy, small, tastefully decorated in dark reds and grays. The chairs are exceedingly soft, to the point where James thinks he may just sink into it and never be able to get up again. It’s disconcerting. The windows are bracketed by stylish drapes, pulled closed slightly to give some semblance of privacy while still letting in natural light. They’re on the third floor, there are no screens. Steve shuts the door behind him with a gentle click, effectively locking them in the room with a virtual stranger. The therapist sits behind a big oak desk in a rolling chair, his notepad already opened to a blank page. Steve reaches over the desk to shake his hand and introduce himself with a big grin.

“Steve Rogers,” he says. The therapist nods and returns a decidedly cooler smile.

He says, “Phil Coulson,” placidly. James is made thoroughly uncomfortable by the entire exchange. He doesn’t move from the devouring seat. Instead, he plasters a fake grin of his onto his face and squares his shoulders, crosses his legs.

“James Barnes,” he states. Steve sits in the chair next to him, spreading his legs widely and relaxing into the cushions. He raises his eyebrows in obvious approval; of course he would like these dumb fucking seats. He’s never had a problem making himself at home in front of strangers, has never had to think about what the repercussions of that might be. Steve is blessedly silly like that.

“They’re nice right?” Coulson preens, and rolls himself around the desk, gathering a pen on the way around. He’s dressed plainly, in a black suit with an unwrinkled white shirt. He looks like his favorite cereal is Raisin Bran.

“Yeah,” Steve nods, “they’re great.” James wishes he could roll his eyes, but refrains. Barely. He thinks that maybe he could take his jacket off and give off the illusion of not being completely on edge, but he doesn’t do that either. His jacket is comfortable, and it completes his outfit. Plus, he doesn’t want Coulson to be the best dressed in the room; that’s losing before the game even begins.

“So,” Coulson begins, “let’s jump right in, shall we? How long have you two been married?”

James says, “Six years,” at the same time Steve says, “Five years.” They both pause, but neither of them looks at each other. James can feel his hackles rise, and he knows that Steve can too. Steve is probably scared. Good, he should be. Well, not good, but good that he knows he’s fucked up.

“It’s six, hun,” he corrects his husband stiffly, jaw clenched.

“Is it? I think it’s fi-,” Steve muses, but cuts himself off when James looks at him sharply. James tries to play it off with a small, tight smile, but his eyes are wide and threatening, he knows, and Steve holds up his hands in surrender. It’s six. They’ve been married six years, James is sure, because he made a whole big deal out of the nice round number five the year before.

“Well, it’s six,” James mutters definitely, therefore ending the speculation. Coulson tilts his head almost imperceptibly at them and blinks slowly.

“Around five or six years, then?” he clarifies, “Do you mind if I take notes? Sorry, I should’ve asked that question first.”

“Not at all,” Steve assures him, looking to James warningly first, “and yes about…five or six years.” It’s six. They’ve been married for 6 years and 2 months, actually, but James just lets it drop. No use arguing about it in front of Coulson, he’ll probably just try and make it seem like that’s the basis for all their problems somehow and they’ll never hear the end of it. James knows when to pick his battles and while he’s all too willing to die on this hill, he doesn’t need the therapist to know that. He doesn’t like being analyzed. He likes being right, that’s all.

“Good. And how’ve the years been for you two?”

This time, he and Steve do look at each other before speaking. James considers this question. They bought the house a year into their marriage, moving out of their shared loft and selling Steve’s shitty motorcycle. That was nice, exciting. The vacation to Puerto Rico the year after that had consisted of absolutely fantastic margaritas and tans. Steve had expanded his business and gained some major contracts in the last few years. They redid the kitchen 10 months ago and James had been very happy. Granite countertops were popular because they were pretty and easy, but the Calcutta quartz they had installed was truly a sight to see. Steve had complained incessantly about the price (he lacked both vision and taste), but the kitchen was James’s pride and joy. They’d bought a boat too and were thinking about finally adopting a dog. Things were good, James decides. He says as much.

But Steve just says, “Fine,” which results in a raised brow from both his husband and their therapist.

“Fine?” they both say, except Coulson sounds calm and genuinely inquisitive whereas James sounds almost defensive. Steve’s shoulders rise up near his ears and he starts to turn slightly red. This time James really does roll his eyes. Fine?

“Y-yes,” Steve says hesitantly. He’s refusing to look at James, his eyes instead trained (smartly) on Coulson, as if pleading for help.

“Why do you say that?” Coulson asks. James angles his body minutely towards Steve, cause he’s pretty curious himself.

“Well…I mean. We stopped off-roading. Stopped hiking-,” James sucks his teeth incredulously at that, readying himself to interject and explain., but Coulson motions for him to quiet, so he does and Steve continues on, “We don’t really—we used to have shared hobbies and now we don’t. We don’t even f—have…sex as…often.”

Steve is really and truly blushing now, his body sunken into the chair in embarrassment as he resolutely does not look at his husband. James had figured they’d ease into the heavier topics, he didn’t realize they were going to walk in and start telling all of their private, intimate secrets to this guy as soon as he opened his mouth, but everyone’s wrong sometimes he guesses. They don’t even know if the guy is any good and here they are airing out dirty laundry. He wants to pinch Steve’s arm but he’s slightly too far away. Instead, James grits his teeth and wills his heart rate to slow before he begins sweating or fidgeting like an idiot. Like fucking Steve.

“That’s unfortunate,” Coulson tsks sympathetically. James wants to punch him for doing this to them, but he too is out of reach, and that’s certainly illegal. The look on the guy’s face is just a little too much.

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. James tries to hold on to the breathing exercises he practices in yoga and exhales to an imaginary 8 count in his head. If he doesn’t, he’s going to punch both of them and that certainly wouldn’t go over well.

* * *

They met in Mexico City seven years ago. Steve had come up to him at the hotel’s bar and asked, awkwardly, if they could share a room as there was apparently a shortage. James knew that it wasn’t true, hell the room next to his was vacant, but he also knew that the federales were looking for individuals travelling alone. (There was a huge drug bust. That’s why James had been there in the first place.) Steve had been backpacking through the area, he told James, and he only had enough money for a few more days before he needed to fly home to New York. James had said yes, a little reluctantly, but the longer they sat at the bar together drinking and making eyes, the easier it was to accept Steve’s presence. The fact that Steve had given him the blowjob of his life that night in thanks hadn’t hurt either. They flew home together. The anniversary for that is coming up. It was winter when they met and James was thinking about maybe spending Christmas there, in Mexico City, this year, as a sort of treat for the two of them. It would be nice to escape New York’s winter for a little while, stay in the same shabby hotel where they first had sex, drink tequila on the balcony and watch the stars. He figured it would be romantic, and since hearing Steve describe their marriage as just “fine” James figures they could use a little romance.

They dated for two months before Steve proposed. It had been sudden and unplanned; the dope didn’t even have the ring on him when he did it in James’s car at the movies. James had teared up a little, gave a wobbly yes, and within 6 more months he had planned the wedding and they were tying the knot. A lot of their friends had been a little weary, for obvious reasons, but it had been a terribly happy affair. Winifred Barnes was even more weepy than the two of them, Becca had gotten completely blitzed at the reception and revealed his childhood nickname, and Steve’s mom, Sarah, had given the perfect speech welcoming James into their tiny little family.

They honeymooned in Delos, Greece. Spent their time snorkeling and drinking, wandering through beautiful historical sites that Steve dedicated hours to painting and sketching. They’d lay out on the beach and bake, Steve slathered in layer upon layer of sunscreen and James’s arm warming to a dangerous 100 degrees in the sun so that he couldn’t even touch anything with it half the time, and it had been perfect.

“I wish I spoke Greek or something, so I could recite poems to you,” he’d laughed drunkenly one night in the hotel room. They had been sharing a bath, scented with lavender and hibiscus oils, splashing wine all over each other. The jacuzzi tub was big, but so were they, and their toes rubbed against the edges, water dripped onto the floor.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. This is the birthplace of Apollo, yknow.”

“The tour guide told us as much.”

“You resemble him.”

“The tour guide?”

“Apollo, silly,” James giggled, pinching Steve’s thigh under the water and spilling his glass some more. Steve had chuckled indulgently and topped him off, drank from the bottle himself. It took a lot to get him drunk, but not James. It had always been one of his greatest shames, what a lightweight he was, but Steve thought it was cute and James thought Steve was the god of the sun.

“I do?”

“Oh yes,” he hiccupped, “Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect body, wonderful artistic ability. Were you born here?”

“I was not,” Steve shook his head regretfully, “though it would be nice. To live somewhere so sunny and carefree.”

“It would be,” James sighed comfortably, leaning back into the solid warmth of his new husband. He’d been so full of joy and butterflies and love that he could’ve floated away like a fucking helium balloon. Then again, with the amount of lamb and wine he’d consumed that day it would’ve been hard. Steve traced shapes into James’s chest, kissed and mouthed at his shoulder where sensitive skin was grafted into metal. James moaned gently at the sensation, relaxing even more.

“If I’m Apollo, then who are you?” Steve asked lowly, his voice a sweet rumble in his chest that reverberated through James’s whole body. He felt like a well-cooked noodle.

“I dunno,” he’d shrugged, “one of his beautiful lovers I guess.”

When they made it to bed that night, Steve had laid him out on the bed, gently, carefully. Both of them were bath warm and Steve a little tipsy, James slightly drunk, their movements languid and easy as they moved with one another. Steve had opened him up slowly, dropped kisses on the insides of his thighs and leaving pretty purple bruises in his wake. His fingers were so thick and perfect, so utterly relentless as James was stretched open and Steve laid him bare in the most intimate of ways. They’d fucked before of course, but never like that. It had been like being trapped in a dream, it had been heady and deafening and too hot. Steve’s mouth never stopped moving against his; James had barely been able to breathe. They shared the air, they shared the space, shared each other. James had dragged his nails across Steve’s back as he rocked into him, gripped his short, sun darkened blonde hair in his hands and pulled as he bucked his hips into each thrust. He’d been in love, he’d been so irrevocably and stupidly in love that he couldn’t remember any words that weren’t, “Steve, Steve, please, don’t stop,” but it had been fine because Steve didn’t stop. He was right there with James, caught up in him, trapped in that hazy rose-tinted dream too.

Things had been more than just fine.

* * *

That evening, about an hour or so after they leave the godforsaken therapist’s office (seriously, _fuck_ Phil Coulson), James makes excuses saying that he must head to the office and handle an emergency security breach. They scheduled their appointment on a Wednesday because James always gets to leave work early and they’d have time for it. Steve thinks it’s because the office closes for individual client meetings and that James can leave if he needn’t be there in person for them. In actuality, James just lets Natasha watch over the place so he and Clint can train before he has to shower and return home. A lot of other agents have lives outside of work and adhere to weird schedules like his, so there’s always a revolving door of training simulations going in the S.H.I.E.L.D gym. James wishes he were headed back there so he could blow off some steam at the range, but alas. Duty calls.

While Steve is in the shower James pours himself a glass of wine, finds himself unnecessarily irked at the sight of all the douchey seasonal beers in the fridge, and putters around the kitchen. During the remodel he had a few of his hidey holes expanded so that he wouldn’t have to hide so much shit in the basement. He taps his access pattern onto the button above the stove and the door slides open revealing a hidden shelving unit. James peers over the rows and rows of knives before deciding on three push knives, two AK47 field knives, and one overly large, overly aggressive serrated blade for good measure. He taps the pattern in once more, takes two large gulps of wine and types in a series of numbers on the microwave above the stove. From behind the backsplash another shelving unit exposes itself, complete with backlights and everything (which James is so proud of) displaying several handguns. He’s always been the kind of guy to show up more prepared than he absolutely needs to be, and he knows he won’t need half of the weapons he’s grabbing, but hey, better safe than sorry. With that in mind, he grabs his Ruger SR1911 and happily admires it over the rim of his wine glass. He shuts everything down and heads for the stairs so that he can change.

The worst part about keeping this secret, aside from the obvious moral decay and the fact that if he were to die in the field Steve could never know, is that his husband never gets to see him in any of his undercover gear. While honeypots were usually Natasha’s gig (for obvious reasons), James was no slouch himself, and he just knew that Steve would get a kick out of seeing him all dressed up. He wore a suit to work every day, but as he slid into the fitted black jeans, concealed his weapons, buttoned the dark blue shirt, leaving just a few buttons undone for the drama, and shouldering a black leather jacket, he thought that maybe Steve would prefer him this way. Lots of people preferred him this way.

James takes his car into the city because it was nondescript, and Steve expects him to. He parks at S.H.I.E.L.D though and switches into a flashier company car. If he wants to do this right, he has to play the role, and that would consist of more than just the briefcase full of toys. They all have their favorite vehicles to drive; Natasha is partial to her Corvette, Clint likes the big black Escalade, and James prefers the sleek Audi R8. It has a sex appeal of its own, and he’s sure this mark will appreciate it too.

James speeds through even more traffic, always worse in the city than in the suburbs, and bobs his head along to the music playing. He’s never nervous before small missions like this, he never feels bad for the target. This really is like having to head back to the office for him; it’s light work. Pierce deserves this. The guy’s a pervert, he’s dangerous to a lot of people. He has no regard for human life, has purchased and sold human beings as well extremely destructive weapons, seriously illegal chemical substances, and has recently started to delve into the world of politics. The only people that would miss him are probably next on the list. James doesn’t have a single qualm about the situation

So, James arrives at the hotel Pierce is staying at and gives the doorman a leery grin, states who he’s there to see and is escorted up to the penthouse by a slight brunette with a blank expression. She opens the door with her keycard and waves James in. He takes in his surroundings quickly, noting a fully stocked bar to his right, floor to ceiling windows in front of his, a hallway with three doors to his left. There’s a safe in the cupboard beneath the television set, James knows because it is the only one that isn’t left askew. He waits politely in the foyer for Pierce to appear.

“Hello,” comes a deep voice. James looks down the hallway to see the man himself, emerging from a steaming bathroom in a plush white robe, his hair damp. James plasters on a big, fake smile and forces himself to give the other man fuck-me-eyes, looking him up and down predatorily. Pierce raises an eyebrow and continues his path towards James.

“Hey there,” he practically purrs. Once Pierce is right in front of him the man removes the briefcase from his hands, sitting in down on the floor next to him, and shoves his hands through the sleeves of James’s leather jacket, as if inspecting him. James lets him, allowing the invasion of his personal space and even leaning into Pierce’s, like he truly wants this. He lets the man remove his jacket, tug at the collar of his shirt, walk around him in a circle as he appraises his merchandise. James internally rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t even try to keep the smirk off his face when Pierce starts to breathe a little heavier.

“Like what you see?” he asks, cocky. Pierce comes around into his line of sight again and nods gravely.

“Very much.”

“Good. I’ve got some plans for you,” he winks.

Thirty-four minutes later he has his metal arm around the man’s throat in a headlock that’s about to get surprisingly un-sexy. He’s home within an hour and a half, happy to find leftover take out sitting in the microwave for him. James sleeps like a fucking baby.

* * *

A few days after the dumb ass therapy session, James has to stay late at work. Oddly enough, James enjoys his cover. Before he was an active duty combatant for S.H.I.E.L.D he was just a data analysist, basically a few steps up from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, but James had really liked it. He got Top Secret clearance, great dental insurance, and the active agents were good enough that he could spar with the metal arm. Occasionally they sent him in as back up on ops, mostly flying jets or running the communications detail, which meant he got to travel for free and take a week off work upon his return. James never would have wanted to become an agent if not for Natasha honestly; he’d been very happy with his cushy position and air-conditioned office. Of course, then there’d been a series of nearly comical fucking mistakes and there hadn’t been anyone nearly dumb enough to go looking for her in the Kyzyl Kum desert other than himself and Clint. The rest, as they say, is history.

The current problem of the week is a particularly excitable mercenary from Washington, D.C. of all places. Call name: Crossbones. Government name: Brock Rumlow. Assessment: overcompensating for something, extremely douchey. Natasha is perfectly competent, probably more equipped to be leading a team than James and certainly more experienced, but she also wasn’t the type to take on more responsibility than necessary. She worked well alone because she followed orders, she worked well in a team because she followed orders. Clint worked well because Natasha worked well, and possibly James was only useful because of his dry glare perfected in Afghanistan and Qatar during his years in Special Forces. Whatever the reasoning, James was in charge of them and being the leader meant that sometimes you had to work late.

While the analysts are busy collecting recon (lucky ducks) and drawing up a ledger of all of Rumlow’s wrong doings, James is stuck looking after them. They report all their information back to him for James to compile into a case file that he submits to Fury, who green lights the operation. Sometimes these things take four minutes, like if the target is someone they’ve been keeping up with for months, and other times it takes hours. They’ve got a three-day window to either bring Rumlow in or eliminate him and that means they can only spare one of those days gathering information for submission.

“Tell dearest Steve we say hello,” Natasha snarks on her way out. James sneers at her and shoos her out the door, Clint not far behind. James wishes, vaguely, that he didn’t have anything to do after this and he could just go home and curl up with a book and a glass of wine, but even after his long day he and Steve have plans.

The Richards are nice people. They live in the house across the street, a big, ugly monstrosity that’s honestly the biggest eyesore on the block (and the Douglas family is notorious for not taking care of their lawn, so that’s saying something), but they’re very nice. Sue is the meteorologist for local channel 7 news, and she always has the best finger food at their parties. This time around, the Richards are celebrating Reed’s newest advancement in astrophysics. It’s obnoxious, frankly, to throw a party for that kind of thing, but Steve is too nice to say no and they knew that well enough to exploit the fact. James suspects that the two of them only get invited to their neighbors’ parties because they want to seem progressive and democratic for being friends with the local gay couple. It’s vile. He hates them all and what’s worse than their obvious pandering is the fact that they’re _boring_. It’s one thing to be polite, to smile and shake hands with someone boring, but it a whole different kind of miserable to pretend to be friends with them. Sue adores James, she’s spent so much time talking to him about the tennis club and her favorite recipes that she’s tricked herself into thinking that he’s ever been genuinely nice to her. It’s even worse for Steve, who Reed himself has tried time and time again to latch onto, because Steve is way too much of a puppy to do anything more than go along with what the guy says and pretend to like golf. Steve hates golfing, but Reed has probably never stepped foot in a gym to do more than couples’ Pilates so it’s not like they could bond over their mutual love of dead lifts and punching things.

“I think a few agencies are looking for this guy,” one of the analysts tells him. James’s private office is in the back of the bullpen and he wishes he could seclude himself in there, but instead he’s been forced to stand miserably front and center as the technicians shout jargon at each other and him. It’s like standing in the middle of Grand Central, bustling with activity, overly crowded and sort of nervous. He knows he scares them. James wishes he had that effect on Fury or Romanoff, so he could’ve bullied one of them into doing this shit.

“I would sure hope so,” he sighs.

“I mean like…every agency. We’ve got pings from C.I.A, F.B.I, Interpol, the SVR for crying out loud.”

“And they want him dead or alive?”

“Well it really depends. F.B.I and Homeland Security say dead, Interpol says dead, SVR and C.I.A though…”

“And who’s moving fastest on him?”

“Looks like C.I.A.,” the analyst reports. James can feel a headache starting to make itself known, right behind his left eye. He sighs again and rubs at his temple.

Another shitty part of his job is that S.H.I.E.L.D works in the dark. There’s no collusion with any other intelligence agency, they simply don’t have the same agenda. S.H.I.E.L.D knows every secret there is to know about everyone because they believe those are the only safe hands, but the tricky part about knowing all these secrets is that they’re privy to everyone else’s agenda. It’s almost discouraging knowing how shady your own government is, and James would bet everything he owns on the fact that the C.I.A is willing to keep Rumlow alive because they think they can use him. They’d been willing to leave Pierce breathing for the same reason.

“Fuckin’ aye,” he groans, “Get Fury on the line.”

* * *

James thought there were very few things that could make his week worse. Therapy had been an unmitigated disaster, the party at the Richards’ had been as mind meltingly stupid as he anticipated, the C.I.A. was trying to capture his mark so they could use him as a puppet, he found out Santa Clarita Diet was canceled, and Steve had been out until 2 am on a Wednesday and came home smelling of cigarette smoke and liquor. Steve has fucking asthma. Who the hell is he running around with that smokes three packs an hour (by the way the smell sticks to him)? To put it lightly, James is tense and could have used a drink stronger than wine by the time he was put into the field and his entire mission began to fall to shit right in front of him.

He’s sitting in a tiny little outhouse in the middle of hot-as-an-asscrack-in-July Texas waiting for the caravan of cars to cross the Mexican border, when someone trips his trip wire. He and Natasha had come up with the idea of setting the perimeter to blow once Rumlow’s group of vehicles made it back to the United States so that it could be blamed on border security and the evidence of smuggled drugs could be planted. S.H.I.E.L.D didn’t need the credit and if they gave it to the American government, perhaps they’d throw them a little more cash. That isn’t possible, however, if the perimeter blows up the wrong guy. James lurches towards his equipment and grabs a pair of binoculars at the same time as he yells, “Are you seeing this shit?” to Natasha over the coms.

“I’m seeing this shit,” she sighs, “How good are your eyes?”

James squints against the reflection of the sun in the glass. There’s a guy zooming through the area on a grimy dirt bike. He’s built like a shit brickhouse by the looks of it, but his face is covered by a big dust colored helmet. He’s wearing stupid jean cutoffs and even stupider Timberlands and worst of all a fucking Hawaiian shirt. Their mission is about to blown to hell by a thrill-seeking loser in a Hawaiian shirt. James clenches his fist and bites back the urge to start screaming at the sky.

“I mean. It’s just some douche on a dirt bike,” he sighs. As he watches, the man stops his bike and hops off. He’s still bobbing his head to some music James can’t hear, and James grinds his teeth in annoyance at this display of carelessness.

“The caravan is entering firing distance in 32 seconds,” Natasha warns him. James looks down at this computer and then looks over at the sniper rifle in the corner of the shack. He didn’t fly to Texas for nothing. He sure as hell didn’t deal with the overly concerned redneck TSA agent, Angela, for nothing.

In a split-second James decides that he is going to a) reprogram the border so that the plan goes off without a hitch and b) kill Hawaiian shirt. He types quickly on the computer, keeping his eyes on the radar telling him exactly how far away Crossbones is. When he looks up briefly, he sees the guy taking a piss. He shakes his leg out, like his leg has cramped or he’s dripped or something (what a fucking moron), and James bites his bottom lip at the familiarity of the movement. Steve’s silly ass does that sometimes, early in the morning when his legs are stiff from being curled up in the most compact way possible. James lets out a feral sounding almost growl in his rage and confusion, presses enter, and grabs his gun so that he may take aim.

“The border’s back up?” Nat states in confusion.

“Yeah. I’m just gonna take him out. I can do that right? He’s compromising this mission.”

“Uh yeah, you could Soldier, but I dunno that-,”

“Maybe I’ll go nonlethal?” James takes aim, setting his gun in the window so that he can focus.

“Oh…kay,” Natasha agrees hesitantly, probably sensing the crazy eyes James is giving the entire world right then, “I’m picking up something-,” she says, and James can hear her furiously typing away, but he doesn’t really care. Nonlethal could work; he could shoot the guy in the leg and call for medical evac on the chopper back to base. Just as his eyes meet the cool length of his scope, however, there’s a ghastly banging noise and the air almost folds in on itself, being sucked right out of the room and seemingly the whole desert as Hawaii fires a fucking rocket launcher. Right at James. Through the scope, James catches a glimpse of a white gold wedding band on the guy’s finger.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” he snarls, diving for cover.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> steve's life is a mess tbh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still gave you an elevator scene. with natasha in the mix. you're welcome.

Steve isn’t sure how the fuck he missed this, but now that he’s done missing it, the whole thing is completely and utterly obvious. Who the hell agrees to sharing a room with a huge random stranger in a foreign country if they didn’t think they could take the guy? What white guy from New York speaks four different languages (including _Russian_ ) and doesn’t have some sort of nefarious reason? Steve can hardly breathe at the thought of his husband being a Russian sleeper agent that _sleeps_ next to him every night.

After Texas, he’s on high alert. His brain is acting in fight or flight at all times; he’s tense and irritable and he can barely see straight he’s so angry. Steve beats Bucky home, which he knew he would. Bucky had said he was going to a conference in Atlanta that would last 3 days. Now that he thinks about it, it makes sense because there would obviously be no record of him leaving the country and a nice tan could be explained without having to give Steve his actual location. He doesn’t know why he took the shot, but he did and now Steve is scared for his life. People in this field don’t take being shot at too lightly, especially not when an op is on the line.

Beating Bucky home means that Steve gets a full 24 hours to wallow before he has to jump into action. He returns from the mission (failed, compromised by outside forces), drops his bags at the front door, and turns right back out of the house. He heads for the shed out back. He isn’t sure where Bucky keeps his stash, and there must be one, but his seems to be untouched. He gathers $25,000 in cash, four handguns, ammo, and four knives, and stores it all in a nondescript black backpack. At first he parks himself in the formal living room, as one corner is in a blind spot from any angle in the foyer, but then he starts drinking beers and he knows Bucky hates finding rings from the sweat on his polished oak so Steve moves into the dining room where there are coasters. He keeps one gun drawn, sitting on the table, loaded, ready, and watches the door. Steve keeps expecting for his husband to hurry through the door, guns that he actually knows how to use drawn and blazing, but nothing happens. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the man he saw in the desert wasn’t James, he thinks to himself, over and over again. Except that’s not enough because he knows what he saw. The close clipped chocolate brown hair, the blue eyes stark and familiar and accented by the black anti-glare paint. After about 7 hours of surveillance Steve retires for the night, arming all of the alarms. He sleeps with the bag under the bed at night, his body too exhausted from being fight ready for hours in anticipation to stay awake.

In the morning, there’s still nothing. Steve goes downstairs with his Glock drawn, closing blinds and checking corners all the way down, and there’s nothing. He makes coffee. Boils three eggs and snacks on yogurt. All the while, Bucky never shows. Steve is nervous as hell.

His husband has always made Steve nervous; he should be clear about that. In the beginning it was a good nervous, the kind of nervous that made you propose after only a few months, the kind of nervous that made you run into a relationship with no thought or regard for the self. Bucky would smile at him sometimes and Steve’s heart would race like he’d just run around the entire island of Manhattan, his palms would sweat like he was about to walk into a fight he knew he could win, but things were different now. For one thing, Bucky very rarely gave him the kind of cloudless, careless smile that made Steve’s insides turn to jelly, and for another, they weren’t even fucking. Their relationship had curdled and staled to a point where they didn’t even need to speak to know where the other was; their routine was so set in stone. They woke up every morning around 7, Steve would fix breakfast while Bucky showered (Steve was a before bed shower kind of guy), they’d eat their meals, head back upstairs and go about the task of dressing for the day. At 8:30 they were both ready and pulling out of the driveway in their perfect suburban neighborhood, not revving the engines of their sensible commuters’ cars. They’d come home, Bucky would probably make dinner, they’d watch whatever show they’d picked up, work in their separate offices or whatever, go to bed and start all over again. Each day. Nothing about the Bucky that was happy doing the same thing every day made him nervous, except for the tickling in the back of Steve’s head that led him to believe Bucky wasn’t happy and would eventually stop pretending to be. That made him nervous. And now the prospect of being killed by Bucky made him nervous. If Bucky was as focused and competent in the field as he was in his office, then Steve had real reason to be nervous. The guy could make an intern cry with nothing less than a withering look.

Steve goes into work. The company actually rakes in pretty good money even without all of the undercover shit, and it’s nice being your own contractor when it comes to murder. This way he and Sam know they’re doing what they do for the right reasons, there are no hidden agendas or politics to be heard of. Just good old-fashioned ass beating.

“You won’t fucking believe this,” he tells Sam as soon as he breezes into the cramped office. His friend is standing at the reception desk but cuts his conversation short to follow Steve back into his private office. They don’t say a thing as Steve hangs his coat and boots up his computer. Wanda brings in coffee for the two of them. Steve turns on blackout protocols.

“What happened?” Sam asks finally, “The mission was compromised. The price went up.”

“My husband, man,” Steve says, shaking his head. He throws himself into the rolling chair behind his desk and Sam sits on the other side, his eyebrows raising practically into his hairline.

“Your…husband?”

“Yes.”

“James Barnes-Rogers? The I.T. director downtown?”

“The one and only.”

Sam blinks slowly, keeps his face absolutely neutral like he’s afraid Steve has gone off the deep end, “How is he involved in the failure of this op that took place…in Texas?” he probes gently.

Steve feels like he’s going insane. It’s too crazy to even say. But it’s the truth. Bucky _was_ there, Steve knows it. If his years in the field have taught him anything it’s to trust himself, and he trusts what he saw, and he knows what it means. “He was there,” Steve admits. He takes a sip of his coffee to give himself something to focus on because right now he isn’t sure he’s not unwinding like a spool of thread. He imagines his skin all shaved off his bones in a continuous loop, until his outsides are bent like a slinky, like the skin of an apple. He shudders. He knows that this can’t possibly end well for him, and it’s just his luck, really, that he would meet a fun sexy guy while on vacation and the dude would wait possibly six years to plot his death.

“What the fuck?”

“He was _there_ Sam,” Steve groans, holding his head in his hands now, “He was there with—with a fucking _sniper rifle_ and I _shot_ at him.”

Sam’s eyes widen, “You shot him?”

“I didn’t shoot him. I shot _at_ him.”

“Is he—Steve,” Sam looks around the room nervously, “did you kill him?”

“No! No! I uh—okay realistically, I dunno. I launched a fucking grenade—,”

“What!”

“Sam! That’s really not important right now. What’s important is that if I saw him, he saw me. I’m compromised. He knows where I live, Sam. In fact, he has a key to the place.”

“Holy shit. This is really FUBAR.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” Steve snorts. They’re sitting in a tense silence for a few moments before there’s a knock at the door.

This is how the office works: Steve and Sam pretend to be construction contractors. So, they both get offices and they have an assortment of reflective vests, hard hats, and work boots that they keep so that the ruse lives. Before he was initiated in the business Steve worked in advertising; designing logos and ad campaigns and making phone calls all day. It had been enjoyable enough, slightly more lucrative than anticipated, but Steve wasn’t the kind of guy who was made to sit behind a desk for anything more than show. He still spent all day making phone calls, and he did draw the logo for his fake business all on his own, but Steve knew precious little about construction. He and Sam paid real licensed people to actually make all of the money for them, allowing a means for washing the cash they received for any hits, and their “employees” only called to get approval for things. It was a simple life when things were running smoothly. Steve pretty much had all the freedom a 9-5 cover could allow, and he only had problems when he had to speak to Wanda. Wanda was a lovely secretary, young and smart and good at keeping her mouth closed, and she never bothered them unless it was absolutely necessary. She came from a family that was very much in the business and knew when to keep her nose out of things.

“Hey Steve,” she calls politely, “You’ve got a very important phone call.”

Sam and Steve look at each other and looked at the phones sitting on Steve’s desk. There is no red light indicating a call on hold from the office phone and his cell remains still and silent, its screen black. Steve quickly stands and closes the blinds in the room, remembering the sure way his husband had lined up the huge, black mass of metal to aim straight between Steve’s own eyes. He’d tapped the side of the barrel too, like a basketball player lining up for a three pointer, or a drummer relaxing his fingers before a solo. Bucky had been very familiar with the sensation and Steve didn’t want to give that muscle memory a chance to put itself to work.

“Who is it?” he replies. Sam is shaking his head already, silently telling Steve not to take any risks. Steve has been known to avoid this advice at times, but this is not one of them. He grabs his phone as he makes his way around the desk, very calmly, to lean next to the door. He pulls a pistol from its hiding place behind a filing cabinet and clicks off the safety as quietly as he can manage.

“Lehigh Distributing. I think a courier is waiting outside,” she says. Steve’s shoulders sag in relief and he locks to safety again before tucking the gun into the waistband of his pants and snatching the door open. Wanda is standing on the other side, seeming as chipper as always. She does narrow her eyes in confusion when she sees them both relaxing out of tense fighting stances, but she does not acknowledge it. Steve grabs his jacket and scoots her out of his office, shooting Sam a look over his shoulder.

“Okay. I’ll meet them. Go ahead and let them know.”

“Will do,” she drawls, “be careful boss,” she warns. Steve rolls his eyes good naturedly before opening the door to their space and walking towards the elevators. A courier is innocuous enough. He’s not dumb enough to think that the normalcy is reason enough to let their guard down, but he does doubt he’s going to die going to pick up a package being mailed to his office, even if it is just a ploy to get him out of the building. Plus, Steve doubts that even his husband is ruthless and calculating enough to use a package bomb to take him out. Steve enters the elevator and presses the button for the ground floor.

While the elevator ride from the 39th floor to the first is always a long one, it has been recently held up by construction on some of the higher levels. Steve sits in a standstill for about twenty seconds before the cart even moves, and then he ends up stopping at the 30th floor anyway. Two people enter. There’s another pause there, shuddering but brief, before they’re lowering again. At the 26th floor, three more people get on the elevator. Another person on twenty-one. Two more on nineteen. All of the passengers are men, all of them over 5’10”, wearing suits. Three of them have briefcases, one of them is directly in front of Steve and the other two on either flank. The gun in his pants suddenly seems heavier. Of the five men with nothing in their hands, three of them have one hand in their pockets, secured around something. The remaining two, tucked into the back corners of the cart, are balanced on the balls of their feet. Steve’s muscles coil, he notices a bead of sweat drip down the neck of the bulky guy in front of him.

Just as he’s about to open his mouth to issue a warning to the men, they stop at the 16th floor. Steve is honestly worried about the elevator’s capacity; it’s not like he’s trapped in there with men much smaller than himself, but there’s a lone woman waiting on the other side of the sliding doors. She’s wearing a fitted dark gray pantsuit and sunglasses and talking on her phone. She doesn’t acknowledge anyone in the elevator, just curls her lip in slight annoyance at the ground and goes back to chewing someone a new asshole.

“I don’t even have the crumbs of a fuck to give,” she bites out. Steve thinks vaguely that she must be a goddamn tyrant, all of that exacting rage wrapped into a tiny little 5 foot something ginger package. It’s sort of funny.

But then she hangs up and pulls her bobbed scarlet hair into a ponytail. It’s an innocent gesture in itself, but Steve spots thick, ribbed, bracelet like devices around her wrists. They aren’t cute enough to be jewelry, and there’s not even the excuse of trendiness to protect her. The apparatuses around her wrists are now obviously weapons, in fact they hum quietly with energy and Steve can make out the slight indentations of buttons right above what is supposed to look like little blue jewels. The elevator stops moving altogether, between the 15th and 14th floors.

Steve sighs, “Before we get started…does anyone wanna get out?” The small woman scoffs, and all hell breaks loose.

The three men with briefcases hang back as the men with their hands in their pockets rush forward. Each of them swings forth long batons that sizzle with electricity and Steve dodges as fast as he can. He’s never seen them before, has no idea if they’re lethal or not and he has no desire to find out. Ducking under one, he punches its owner in the gut, grabs his wrist, and shoves him away with the bulk of his shoulder so that the cattle prod is in Steve’s hand now. He uses it on him. Steve drops to the floor, kicking at the feet of one man and jabbing the baton into another man’s thigh. As he rises, throwing a hard and fast punch at one suit’s temple, he’s tackled from his right side and launched into the far wall. Before Steve can correct himself, he’s met with a jab to his solar plexus as the small woman launches herself off of his body and wraps her thighs around his neck. She locks her hands together and locks her ankles together as well, keeping Steve in a vice grip as she rams her elbows into the crown of his head. Steve is briefly hit with a wash of dizziness and then electricity is singing through his body until all he can do is wail in agony and try to break free from her grasp. He thrusts his leg out desperately, trying to throw her backwards and keep the man in front of him a safe distance away. He manages to kick one man in the chest and send him flying, however, Steve knows he’s outdone. The woman holds fast, and Steve goes down to his knees. He considers, briefly, how ridiculous it would be for him to die with his head between the legs of woman, before throwing himself backwards against the wall in a last-ditch effort to dislodge her. He does it like three times before she goes limp and he’s able to toss her over one shoulder and into a suit trying to rise from the ground. They both groan upon the impact and Steve shocks the woman for good measure.

Then, the elevator starts to move again. The three men with briefcases are still standing and one of them throws his like a frisbee at Steve’s face. Steve catches it but it’s difficult to retain footing as they make their descent. The other two men open their briefcases to reveal sets of heavy-duty magnetized handcuffs, a model Steve has only seen in weapons demonstrations and his own wet dreams. He’s vaguely flattered that Bucky would send this much firepower after him.

Despite their superior technology though, Steve overpowers the men, locking two of them in their own cuffs and hitting the other in the face with the butt end of his pistol. All in all, the party probably took about 4 minutes but Steve aches like he’s been sparring for an hour. He’s definitely going to have a goose egg on his forehead, he split his knuckle, and he lifts his shirt to find a black and blue bruise spreading like spiderwebs where he was shocked with the electrified nightstick. Steve takes stock of the violence around him and hopes his husband hasn’t done something terribly devious, like turning the camera feed (that Steve knows had to have been cut) back on while Steve is dragging the unconscious bodies around the elevator.

He finishes piling the assailants in the corner, leaving them sitting up and even placing their briefcases in a nice pile, just as the elevator reaches the ground floor. Steve flips through the address book of faces in his mind and tries to place the dangerous redhead, but the recognition is fleeting. He remembers her vaguely as someone he’s seen his husband talking to as he leaves work and briefly at the few agency dinner parties they’ve attended together; Bucky never really hangs out with people from the office. At least, not with Steve present. The girl at the front desk does not look disturbed in the slightest, meaning the camera in the elevator has not been transmitting a live feed. Steve thanks his lucky stars for that one and limps out of the cart, even though he’s pretty certain there’s no fucking package waiting for him.

His phone shrills, “Rogers,” he barks. Steve has no doubt who’s on the other end.

“Hiya baby,” Bucky coos innocently, like he didn’t just send a strike team of special agents to jump Steve in an elevator. If not for the throbbing across Steve’s entire body, he’d almost believe that this was just a casual call from a husband checking in.

“Bucky…” Steve grinds out.

“You don’t sound too happy to hear from me,” Bucky pouts. Steve can picture the exact face his husband is making too, and that only stokes the fire pit of resentment in him.

Steve sucks his teeth, “Cut the shit Barnes. Where the fuck are you hiding?” he demands. Steve knows the lobby of his place of work is not the appropriate place to be having this conversation, so he dips out of an unlabeled side door and exits into an alleyway. He scans the area quickly, finding a lone camera at the end of it and three undisturbed dumpsters. Steve leans against the building and takes a steadying breath.

“So it’s _Barnes_ now, huh?” Bucky spits, absolutely seething in the way that he does. No matter how mean or angry Steve gets in an argument, how loud he yells or what dishes he throws, Bucky has always remained perfectly in control. When he’s angry Bucky just plucks and plays with emotions, he cuts deep and precisely, like a surgeon. His voice never raises or wavers and every word is properly enunciated so you can hear the deep and critical anger he’s trying to express. If left unchecked Bucky would rip an unsuspecting innocent to shreds with a few well worded sentences. This is no different. That thought makes Steve’s stomach churn; the idea that his husband approaches their arguments like he does a kill, the idea that he’s no different from any other mark.

“Well it’s certainly not baby,” Steve scoffs, “it’s a bit late for that don’t you think?”

“Oh no, I’d say we’re doing just _fine_.”

Steve snorts, “If this is us doing fine, I’m gonna hate to see us through divorce,” he mutters darkly, because it’s true. If this is just a rough patch for them Steve imagines divorce is going to result in the involvement of the SVR or worse. He prays to God that Bucky doesn’t send the redhead after him again.

There’s a brief moment of tense silence during which Steve looks nervously up and down the alley, then, “You want a divorce?” Bucky shrieks hysterically. That sends Steve for a loop. If the team had been successful Steve would be dead or getting there, which Steve sees as the end of a marriage. He says as much. Bucky says, “Well yes, but if I failed…you’d leave me?”

“You sent 9 people to kill me at my place of work. They had nightsticks with enough electric charge to brain an elephant it feels like.”

“They got you?” Bucky crows, sounding both horrified and horrifyingly pleased, “I honestly wasn’t sure they’d be able to tag you with the batons. I thought they’d make for a good show though.”

“You weren’t watching the camera?” Steve replies in disbelief. If he was running an op like this, he’d be watching the camera every step of the way. And if Bucky wasn’t watching the camera how did he know when to call Steve? He rubs his temple, feeling a migraine brewing.

His husband hesitates, “No, I wasn’t watching the camera,” he admits, sounding almost guilty.

“I thought you’d be able to take it. What are you doing then?”

“Is that a come on?” Bucky flirts. Steve’s heart clenches in his chest.

“No. I’m shocked that you didn’t watch trained killers beat the shit out of me. And it’s a fucking question that begs an answer.”

“I’m…doing some spring cleaning.”

“Spring cleaning?” Steve deadpans, “It’s goddamn October.”

“Yes well,” Bucky sniffs primly, “Still cleaning.”

“The house?”

“Our house, yes.”

“I…don’t live there anymore,” Steve manages to croak.

“No?”

“No.”

“You’re never coming back?” Bucky asks, and while he’s definitely trying to call Steve’s bluff there’s something wobbling in his voice. Steve almost wants to take pity on him, wants to soften the hard edges of life for his beautiful, fierce husband like he always does, but he remembers the circumstances of this call. He remembers how easy this has been for Bucky, this betrayal. This is about professional pride for Bucky, unlike Steve. Steve doesn’t want to hurt Bucky, could never fathom the idea, but now he has to and that’s more painful than a million stings from those insane batons. Bucky, on the other hand, is a professional at hurting those who have hurt him, and Steve did launch a grenade at him and cause him to fail an operation. He thought he knew his husband but obviously he doesn’t, not as well as he’d originally assumed at least. He knows Bucky can hold a grudge though, even if it eats him up inside and gives him stomach pains and makes him want to rip out his hair. Bucky will hurt Steve if he has to because it’s his mission and Bucky’s hurt now too, he feels like Steve has wronged him so he’s going to wrong Steve, that’s just how he is. Bucky doesn’t give up and he believes in an eye for an eye in the most biblical way. It’s awful and the back of Steve’s throat aches with unshed tears, leaving a coppery taste on his tongue.

“No.”

“Oh, so I can keep the Beretta? And the backpack with enough money in it to buy a fucking Jeep?”

Steve gulps, “Yes. You can.”

“Okay,” Bucky chirps, “That’s all I needed,” and he hangs up. Steve sucks in a slightly frenetic breath and lets it out quickly, trying to prevent himself from hyperventilating in this alley. He needs to move. If the bodies in the elevator haven’t been discovered (they almost certainly have) then the agents will start to wake soon and it’s pretty easy to walk out of a side door and check an alleyway. The last thing Steve needs is to get his ass handed to him in public. He pushes himself off the wall and limps towards the garage under the building where he keeps his midlife crisis motorcycle. He’s kept it here for years, in anticipation of needing to find a hobby to occupy his time and make him feel alive when his marriage really and truly devolved into something less than love, but using it as a getaway vehicle suits him and Bucky just a little bit more.

* * *

Steve drives for 16 hours straight. He throws his phone into a toll kiosk, getting it stuck, and crosses state lines into Pennsylvania. He doesn’t use any credit or debit cards. He did carry an emergency bag to work with him, so he has about 7 grand on him, a pistol (and the one on his waist! Nice luck!) and enough clothes for two days, but not much else. Steve actually wears a helmet while he drives just in case Bucky is running facial identification. He doesn’t stop at a hotel. He doesn’t stop until he reaches sunny Jacksonville, Florida and he’s standing on the front porch of a faded blue bungalow surrounded by a perfectly manicured lawn. Steve knows that he would hate it if any of his colleagues did this to him, but he’s really got no other options. He hasn’t even been able to call Sam for fear of revealing information to him that would get his best friend killed. So Steve knocks and hopes for the best.

“Who is it?” a man yells from the other side.

“Nomad,” Steve calls. He hears a few latches being undone and then Tony Stark’s face is poking through a slot in the door, looking suspicious as always. His hair has grown out, is unruly, but his goatee is as perfectly maintained as always. He’s wearing a bright red silk bathrobe; Steve can just barely see. His eyes are wide.

“Not Steve _Rogers_ , on my _front porch_ ,” Tony groans emphatically. Steve just nods as his friend goes through the process of unlocking all of the security measures on his front door. When he’s done Tony waves Steve through, telling him to ignore the beeping metal detector as Tony knows he’s armed. Tony does make him empty his clips though and set them on the counter before moving into the kitchen to make coffee.

Despite their differences, and the years of separation, Steve doesn’t feel awkward in Tony’s home. He’s never been here in Jacksonville, but he did used to visit all the time when Tony lived in California. On the rare occasion that he finds himself in New York, Bucky has extended a permanent guest pass to Stark and Pepper, mostly because he found Pepper to be the sweetest and most interesting woman in the world. It was cute when they got together and just thinking about the times they’d spent on the deck drinking martinis and gossiping while Steve and Tony were preoccupied with one another made Steve incredibly sad. He missed last week before he knew his husband was a trained assassin. He sunk sadly into the deep leather cushions of Tony and Pepper’s couch.

“Here,” Tony says, returning with a polite mug of coffee for Steve and a 32 oz thermos of it for himself. He throws himself into the La-Z-Boy and kicks his feet up, silently indicating for Steve to tell him the whole sordid tale.

“Bucky’s trying to kill me,” Steve starts off morosely, “We went to couples therapy and I told the guy that we weren’t—that we were having some—y’know _issues_ in—we weren’t being intimate as much anymore and not a week later Bucky’s trying to kill me,” he whines, putting his head in his hands.

Tony blinks, “I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“I’m compromised, Stark,” he sighs, “I failed an op because another agent was running the same one.”

“And now you’re that agent’s new mark?”

“Yes.”

“And that agent is…your husband?”

“Yes.”

“And Bucky knows that he’s after you—Steve?”

Steve thinks back to Bucky mentioning the backpack under their bed, winces, “Yes.”

“Sounds like a fuckin’ set up to me,” Tony begins, belligerent already. He sits up straight in his lounger and looks Steve in the eye seriously, pointing his finger and all, “Think about it man. One agency needs some rogue fuckin’ mercenary out of the way, they got your name somehow or they’ve just been letting you fly under the radar or something and now they need you gone. So they send you to get in this guy’s way knowing that they’ll have every reason to put you down if you’ve compromised some top-secret mission. They planted the buyer on your mark’s head to make _you_ the mark. Maybe they didn’t mean for it to get personal though and they just sent their best guy out there…unless,” Tony rambles, his eyes going bright and excited now as his mind works. Steve is only a little terrified, “How much is your life insurance worth, actually?”

“Uh… about a quarter, why?”

“A quarter mil?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs.

“You, Steven G. Rogers, are paying for $250,000 worth of life insurance,” Tony confirms in disbelief.

“I run a relatively successful business,” Steve sneers, “It’s legit in a lot of ways.”

Tony holds his hands up, conceding, “It could be that then.”

“You think Bucky is trying to kill me for my life insurance settlement? He sent 9 agents to try and kill me in my office yesterday. He could’ve just cut the brakes in my car.”

“I mean maybe! Maybe he’s doing this cause he knows he has to if he wants his leger to stay clean and pretty, and let’s be real here he’s got a perfect leger if he’s in the game,” Steve nods his reluctant agreement when Tony gives him a fondly exasperated look, the same look he always gives Steve when they’re talking about their partners, “and he knows he’ll get even more out of it with you dead. He’s a hands on kinda dude, he wants to do it himself to make sure the job’s done and when it is not only is he back on top wherever he works but he’s also got another $250,000 in the bank. I hate to say it, but this is very on brand for him.”

Steve hates to hear it but that’s definitely true, “I know. It would be endearing if my life weren’t in danger.”

“Yeah those cold dead eyes have always let you know where home is, this guy’s got you so sprung.”

“Can’t say you’re wrong. He’s always been my favorite conniving capitalist.”

“Only you could say that with so much love.”

Steve laughs wetly, ready to drown himself in a lot of deserved self-pity.

* * *

When Steve’s mom got sick, he and Bucky went and got drunk together. It might’ve been a job for a best friend, going to some poorly lit, hole in the wall pub and knocking back whiskeys, but Bucky had volunteered. So his new husband rounded him up and pressed him into the passenger seat of his very sensible Buick and they drove into the city. Bucky hated parking on the street with a vehement passion, but he did it anyway and led Steve into this shitty dive. Half of the lightbulbs in the place were out, the countertop was suspiciously sticky and, oddly enough, there was a picture of Bucky’s friend from work, Clint, with the words “BANNED FOR LIFE” written above it.

“Don’t ask,” Bucky had laughed, taking a seat at the bar top. Steve didn’t laugh along with him, but his eyes traced the perfect lines and angles of his sadly smiling face. It made him feel a bit warmer inside, so Steve continued to study his husband. His hair was a little longer than he’d ever let it grow, his shoulders slimming out as he lost some of his bulk. Right up until they got married Bucky had been huge, thick with well-trained muscles, but he started slimming down when he and Steve got together. Steve liked it, liked Bucky like that; slimmer and smaller. Steve felt like he could protect him. When Bucky ordered their drinks, just a vodka and soda for himself and a neat whiskey for Steve, he slid his toned arm across the bar, showing off the watch Steve got him for his birthday. His lashes were so long, miles long, it seemed, and they swept shadows across the perfect height of his cheekbones. The dingy yellow light wasn’t doing him any favors, but he still glowed with the beauty of someone young and well loved. It made Steve’s heart swell with pride, looking at Bucky then, because he was the only person in the world who got to have and hold James Barnes through sickness and health, for wealthy or for poor. It was almost unfair how simultaneously lucky and awfully unfortunate Steve felt too; because his life had finally started to shape itself into something resembling the future he’d always dreamed of and the price he had to pay was the life of his mother.

Steve swallowed his drink down in one go, the burn of it distracting him from the incessant tingling of tears he wouldn’t allow himself to cry. His mom had never been a particularly healthy person. Like her son she suffered from a laundry list of ailments (anemia, lupus, asthma, astigmatism, it goes on for what seems like forever) and while Steve had grown up into a huge hulking man, Sarah was as fair and bird boned as a crystal angel for the entirety of her life. Steve had always thought of her as fragile but then it became true. She really was just like every other person in the world. His mom wasn’t special, she’d die. He’d die. He looked over at his husband, solid and warm and watching Steve over the rim of his glass, and Steve was struck with an otherworldly grief as he realized that Bucky would die too. One day Steve would be well and truly alone; he’d not have one singular person that would look at him like he’d solved all of the problems in the universe. He’d not have one person that would need him.

“Thank you for coming,” he had said to Bucky, because he was grateful. It was probably a lot to ask of someone, to ask them to accompany you while you have a very public emotional breakdown, and he wanted Bucky to know that he appreciated it. Steve wanted Bucky to know that he was afraid for him to die and that even though he knew his mother didn’t have long he wished that he could go with her. He didn’t want to be left behind. He wanted someone to come with him everywhere.

“Of course,” Bucky had grinned, casual and sly and still somehow more intimate than their bedroom, “Of course I’d come.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things are tense

Natasha stands in front of him, holding the giant plush rabbit that they keep in the closet. Its eyes are too dark and soulless for James to allow it in their bedroom, but it has sentimental value so he refuses to let it go. Steve won it for him on their fourth date. They went to Coney Island and it was perfect. James had held Steve’s hand for the whole night, gazed up into his pretty blue eyes that were brighter than any stars you could see in New York; James had practically gone weak in the knees with every look. He wishes, nebulously, that he could go back to that time if only to warn himself that Steve would become his most gorgeous and painful mark, if only to push himself further in love with the man. No matter how painful and shitty this was, James can’t make himself regret marrying Steve. He did love him—does love him, no matter what Natasha is saying. Steve’s been with him through four different haircuts and the process of James, a DUMBO native, getting his license. You don’t find loyalty like that just anywhere, and now he was going to be a divorcee. James wants to, inexplicably, keep the fucking stuffed bunny.

“It goes,” Natasha states blandly. She has a black eye and she’s been favoring her left side in the last 24 hours. She said that Steve was actually worth his salt, not just some lucky lumbering oaf. James had felt a little bit of pride when she said that, but it was short lived. He’d have rather not known this about his husband. Anyone who could handle Natasha’s Thighs of Doom was tough as shit, a real killer, and the only thing worse than trying to kill your husband is knowing your husband is trying to kill you. James has never felt so out of control in his life. He wants to fight to keep the bear, but he doesn’t.

“Yeah,” he sighs instead. Perhaps, when this all blows over, he’ll pay a visit to one Phil Coulson and kick the ever-living hell out of him, because James can’t help but feel like this is all his fault. He and Steve never had any problems until this guy wanted them to pay him to tell them what was wrong with their marriage. Perhaps he works for the C.I.A and it’s been a set up all along. If it is James isn’t going to hold himself responsible for whatever action he takes.

He leaves Natasha to ruin the emotional foundation of his marriage and wanders through the house. Watching all the little S.H.I.E.L.D worker bees defile his home, the most special and private place he knows, makes his skin crawl. When he and Steve bought the place, James had been so happy he couldn’t see straight; he’d been so excited to build this private oasis away from the threats and terror of his job. He’s sad to see it destroyed. James doesn’t think he could ever have a home like this again. He could never love somewhere he lived the way he still loves this place and he runs his hands sadly over the walls and bannisters as he tours the place. He pretends he’s never been inside and falls in love with all the things that make the place perfect all over again. The cherry oak floors, polished and pristine the way James likes. The subtle grandiosity of their stairwell. The gorgeous crown molding. James tries to commit it all to memory because he knows he won’t get to stay much longer. Once S.H.I.E.L.D is done searching the place for surveillance technology and clues to locate Steve he’ll probably have about a week to _kill his husband_ or face the shame of his directors and most likely go into hiding. It’s all terribly embarrassing and James really, truly hates Phil Coulson. James thinks he could handle this entire thing a bit a better if he weren’t haunted by the love of his life telling that strange, balding man that their life was simply fine.

“How’s this for excitement? Shared fucking hobbies,” James mutters darkly to himself. There’s an intern loitering in the doorway to one of the guest rooms and she gives James a confused look. He scowls back at her, “Can I fucking help you?”

“N-no sir. I’m sorry. J-just wondering… the shoes in this closet are yours yes? We don’t need to leave them on the lawn?”

“Leave them…on the—who told you to leave his shit on the _lawn_?” James crows, but he definitely knows the answer.

“Agent Romanoff, sir.”

James sighs, his hand twitching minutely towards the Ruger on his waist, “Yes. The shoes in this room are mine.”

The interaction leaves James with a slightly throbbing headache. He trudges through his home, peeking into the extra rooms and bathrooms upstairs before he finally caves and makes his way to the kitchen. There’s a small compartment fitted for a wine rack right next to the dishwasher and he kneels to look through his collection. Considering he won’t be throwing any dinner parties any time soon, he figures now is as good a time as any to break out the good shit. He almost moves towards Steve’s scotch but goes against it. Perhaps he’ll save that for the loneliness of the night.

James grabs his bottle opener and pops the cork of a 2009 Vieux Chateau Certan. Steve had purchased it for him on a whim one day, feeling in love and generous. James doesn’t even bother with a glass, he just takes a nice, healthy swig right off the bottle. Thankfully there’s no one in the kitchen to watch as he does it. He swallows, thinks absently that this is a very good wine, and then goes in for some more. His chest feels as though it’s been cracked open, like someone slipped a stiletto under his ribcage and used the force to break him open. He feels like a boiled crab. Hot all over, hot inside like burning or melting, and woefully, terribly open and picked at. These people, these strangers, have their hands all over his things and their noses in his life. They’re looking through his photo albums, they stole the sticky notes off of the fridge. They know about the stash of mostly untouched lubes and condoms in the second drawer of his bedside table. All of his coworkers know the scent of his husband’s lovely cologne. James can hear some of them, the ones that are in the garage, talking about how handsome his husband is, how boujee the place is, and it makes him want to drive his fist through the countertop he loves so much. It’s violating. He wishes he could be the one to destroy this life instead of S.H.I.E.L.D. It would’ve been better if he learned, in dumb fucking couples’ therapy, that they had just grown apart and didn’t understand each other anymore and there was nothing left for them to hang onto. Instead, uncaring gloved hands are reaching into the sinewy, wet flesh of his heart and ripping it apart so that they can see what makes it tick. Outside forces are lying their fingers on the pulse of his marriage and declaring it dead, now. James drinks and drinks until there’s half a bottle of $400 wine sitting on the table and he’s burping absently. James hates Steve for doing this to him, to them. Why did he have to be there? Why did he have to mess everything up? What are the fucking odds that he’d be sent on the exact same mission as another agent, in the exact same time and place? And that the agent would be his goddamned husband.

That thought prickles in James’s mind. Despite the haziness he feels from drinking so much so fast, he does realize there is some merit to this line of thought. What _are_ the odds that two agents would end up in the same place at the same time with the same orders? How could that have happened? James’s team did extensive research on their marks, and Crossbones’s plans were virtually unknown. Certainly only hitmen would have been pursuing him and anticipating his cross back into America. Did that mean Steve was a hitman?

James thought that over too. He hadn’t truly believed that Steve had it in him to be the kind of agent that James was; hell, he’d worked their entire marriage to hide what he did from his husband because he figured Steve wouldn’t be able to stomach it. Steve was so self-righteous sometimes, such a staunchly good little shit, and his earnestness often made James sick but the guns he stuck to were good ones and James respected that. He respected his husband too much to be able to associate him with the morally gray and corrosive likes of an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D or the C.I.A. but he couldn’t see Steve as a private contractor. He wouldn’t kill random people for money.

But then again, perhaps he would. If Steve had good reason, his sanctimonious tendencies could lead him down long paths of destruction and questionable decision making. Maybe that’s how he made his way into the business. He knew his husband had wanted to join the military once upon a time but couldn’t when he was right out of high school because he was so thin and sickly. Maybe killing the worst people with prices on their heads was his way of doing the right thing. That makes sense.

It doesn’t make sense that whoever hired Steve would send Steve into S.H.I.E.L.D’s line of fire though. That would be the best way to get caught, taken in by the government and disappeared forever. They’d give him intel that was airtight, if they really wanted Brock Rumlow dead, right?

Unless they wanted James dead more.

James can think of more than a few people who would want him dead. All of those people know that a paid killer isn’t going to be caught in the act and let the loose end go untied. Perhaps, as if killing two birds with one stone, they sent out someone in the business who was as close to a square as they could find, someone they could depend on to get the job done and do what’s necessary for the op in the form of killing James. It’s possible that they didn’t know it was his husband. It’s not like either of them go by Barnes-Rogers professionally and none of James’s contact information is available through any mediums that aren’t safely guarded by unbreakable S.H.I.E.L.D. coding. Not that it mattered if they knew or not; what’s done is done. His husband is trying to kill him.

James watches in a daze as his underlings finish their sweep. Some of them actually show signs of promise and good instinct, and if they were doing this literally anywhere else he’d pretend to be a good, caring boss and give them their pats on the back. As it is he can barely stand to shake Natasha’s hand on her way out of the door. She points severely to the same three kids James had in mind though, gruffly instructing “With me,” as they breeze through his foyer. She gives him a sad seeming nod and then the door is slamming and she’s gone. James knows that he probably shouldn’t stay in the house, Steve could just walk through the door and slit James’s throat in the night, but James can’t seem to make himself leave. There’s a scuff mark on the floor from the team dragging Steve’s easel out of the door. James wants to weep because he’ll never get to see Steve smiling and covered in paint ever again. Those are some of his favorite memories and he’ll never get more.

The thing about him and Steve is that he’d do anything for his husband. When people see them together they see James, suave and put together, and his slightly dopey husband, a giant beast of a man who uses his body more than his mind. But that’s not true. Steve is this beautiful broad man and shining blonde paradigm of virtue and moral uprightness and then there’s James, a carefully watching, cynical eye over his shoulder. James would kill for Steve, would go wherever his husband were to sic him, like an attack dog. Because Steve was good and needed protecting. He shouldn’t have to see any dark or evil underbellies; he’s the exact person James works to keep safe. People see them and think Steve is doting and sweet and self-sacrificing and he is, but James is jealous, and vindictive and violent. Sometimes those qualities are more powerful. He’d sooner crush someone’s skull beneath his boots than watch Steve come to harm, James is that selfish. That’s just that. Everything he does, every lie he’s told and secret he’s kept (every person he’s killed) has been for Steve. James would sooner let Steve kill him than bring him any kind of suffering. So James stays in the house.

*

It takes 41 hours after the sweep for his husband to return home. James knows that it’s him because Steve can never get the key in the lock on the first try, nevermind the fact that they’ve lived in this house for half a decade. James knows it’s Steve because he’d know Steve’s breaths and steps and the hush of his heartbeat even if James were suddenly struck blind. He’s loathe to admit that he hesitates before arming himself. He knows Steve won’t just do it, get it over with, so he’ll have to fight back. Steve will do it if it means living.

James is cooking, so he’s already in the kitchen. Steve can hear him, but James just moves around as if nothing is out of the ordinary, as if he’s not been walking around his own home armed to the teeth in preparation for this moment. There’s a roast in the oven, funnily enough, Steve’s least favorite of James’s meals. James doesn’t make it like Sarah and so Steve is always a little uncomfortable eating it, like he can’t believe he’s betraying his beloved mother’s home cooking. James can’t kill Sarah Rogers’s son.

Steve walks around the corner, no gun drawn or anything, but his face wan and tired, “Buck,” he sighs tiredly. He’s covered in grime, there’s a helmet in his hand.

“Steven.”

“I-I know you don’t—actually I have no idea, really, but I’m just gonna say--,” Steve begins. James watches as his hand twitches towards his waistband, and then Steve puts his hands on his hips. This is a telltale sign of anxiety; this is how Steve gears up to engage in any kind of argument with James and just seeing the all too familiar gesture sends a pang of longing through James’s heart. What he wouldn’t give to just fight with Steve like they were 25 again.

“Save it,” James sighs. His own hand doesn’t twitch, he simply grabs the pistol from the back of his pants and aims it at Steve’s chest. The look on his husband’s face is nearly unbearable. Steve’s jaw clenches but his eyes go watery with betrayal, the broken trust, the shock of it all. He’s paled instantly, no longer the blushing fool that James fell in love with and he wonders if this is how Steve looks in the field. He’s still terribly handsome, so American and gorgeous like a 4th of July evening, but there’s something about the way he straightens his shoulders that tells James he means business. If this is the last face he ever sees it would be a blessing.

“Really?” Steve sighs. He doesn’t pull his weapon. James nods slowly.

“Really.”

“I went a visited an old friend.”

“How quaint.”

“It was Tony. I went and saw Tony.”

James tilts his head, he wonders, “How’s Pepper?”

“She was on a band retreat with Morgan in D.C., so I missed her. Tony says she’s going to be designing a celebrity house in Miami though.”

“Oh wow. Maybe I’ll have her do mine.”

“Yeah I’m sure you could afford it after you collect the life insurance settlement.”

There’s a brief pause during which James considers a few things. One, why are they standing in the kitchen threatening death upon each other and discussing Pepper Potts? And second, life insurance?

“Life insurance?” he asks.

“Yeah. Mine.”

“Well I think murdering the person negates the policy, no?”

Before James’s eyes can track him, Steve lunges forward. There is no clenching of muscles as a precursor for his movement, so James is caught off guard and can’t get a shot off before he’s being tackles backwards. Steve is bigger than him, much bigger, a detail that is entirely too apparent as they struggle for the gun in James’s hand. When they started dating James had slowly let some of his muscle mass dissolve until he was a lot more lithe and slippery. He starts to regret it as Steve takes his wrist in an iron grip and _squeezes_ , throws James’s clenched fist into the wall behind him, trying to force James to drop the gun. Eventually the pressure on his bones becomes too much and paired with the angle Steve is holding him at, James is forced to let go of his weapon. When he does the both of them freeze for a few seconds, panting in each other’s faces. Steve still has that hardened look in his eyes and James can’t imagine that he looks much different. His stomach is tight and aching with fear. He clenches his own jaw and headbutts his husband, catching Steve right in the nose.

“Fuck!” he shouts, stumbling backwards. James takes this as an opportunity to pull a knife from the block and dashes forward. Steve recovers enough to feint to the right, but not before James slices through his jacket and sweater, and red blossoms from the gash on his bicep. James doesn’t stop there, keeps advancing while Steve continues to stumble backwards, ducking and feinting. James holds the knife in his prosthetic hand, as his right wrist currently aches too much for much maneuvering.

“Steve, honey, I never pegged you for the running type,” he teases as they make their way out of the kitchen. His husband rolls his eyes, ducks away from a wicked swipe at his face, and socks James right in the gut, causing him to double over in pain. Steve’s nose is steadily leaking blood, but head wounds always bleed quite a bit, so James knows there isn’t much damage there. Instead of wiping the blood away Steve has opted to let it drip and there is a trail of it leading from the island in the kitchen into the formal dining room where they’ve ended up.

James recovers quickly for the sucker punch only to immediately be met with a knee to the groin and an uppercut to his jaw. He jerks this way and that, now taking his turn to stumble. Steve never falters, finding a perfect rhythm. James is vaguely impressed by Steve’s quick foot work as he’s bent over clutching his roiling stomach and has to chance to watch. Steve jabs him in the side as well, but James dodges the blow aimed for his face, grabs Steve by the arm and uses his momentum to toss the larger man right over his shoulder. Steve smashes into their beautiful oak table quite dramatically and groans quietly.

“I don’t wanna fight you, Buck,” he states miserably. James just shakes his head and pulls a trusty old Glock from its hiding place behind the china cabinet to his left. James clicks the safety off and fires just as Steve dives off the table. James is shocked to find he’s incredibly grateful that Steve is faster than he looks. His heart is pounding, his palms sweating with nervousness he’s never felt on a mission before. Steve is his most deadly mark, and not simply because of skill.

James fires shot after shot as Steve ducks around the corner and out of the room towards the foyer, even firing through the wall in an attempt to disable the other man. When James hears no sign of footsteps or breathing, he reloads and begins to creep towards the entry way.

“Honey?” he calls sweetly, making himself sick at the sound. He gets no reply and for a moment James isn’t sure how to feel. Should he be relieved then, because it’s done so easily, or should he be distressed, bereft because it’s done so easily. He thinks that seeing the body will be hell, seeing Steve as just a body will be hell. But then James turns the corner, gun raised, and suddenly there is a searing pain in his thigh that forces him to collapse to his knee. “Motherfucking shit, fuck,” he cries out.

Steve is crouched in front of him, one of James’s own fucking push knives in hand and another buried in James’s leg. He looks down, notices that Steve has missed his artery, and fixes to fire his gun. Steve is fast though and pulls his own weapon, fires a warning shot next to James’s foot and raises the barrel of his pistol to James’s head.

“I don’t wanna fight you, but I will.”

“Good. I need the workout,” he grunts, raising himself to stand once again. The look on Steve’s face is one of defeat and dread. James never imagined he’d see such an expression directed at him.

“C’mon Barnes. You don’t want this either,” Steve pleads, backing away. James strikes forward to disarm him, pushing the gun out of his own face and ramming into Steve with the metal shoulder. His husband gasps, falls backwards onto his ass and tries to take aim again. When he shoots James protects his face with the prosthetic until he’s too close to shoot. Steve rolls away quickly and is on his feet instantly. He means to engage in hand to hand again, knowing that he has James beat on the grounds of brute strength alone, so James lets him get in close. As soon as he does James jabs him in the shoulder and the side of his neck, causing Steve to drop his other knife and stagger backwards. James dives onto the ground, pulse throbbing a sick bass line to this dance, grabs the knife and throws it straight at Steve’s head. He almost wants to close his eyes so that he can’t see the aftermath but instead he turns away and sprints towards the stairs. He keeps a shotgun under the floor in the guest room and he needs to get to it.

James makes it up three whole stairs before Steve is grabbing the back of his shirt and tossing him back onto the landing. He hits the floor with a thud, his head knocking against the ground and making him dizzy. He grabs the small stand next to the door, where they toss their keys and things, and throws it at Steve.

“What the fuck?” Steve yells.

“You stabbed me! You launched a fucking grenade at me!”

“You tried to kill me at work! I didn’t even clock out! Sam probably had to adjust the times!”

“Well excuse the fuck out of me, Steve. You’re the one that wants a _divorce_ ,” James jumps up, the pain in his leg screaming for him to do the exact opposite. His vision is blurry, his breathing is labored and there’s about no fight left in him as he aims his gun at Steve’s head. Steve does the same, his grip wavering as the muscles in his shoulders probably twinge from James’s assault.

“You tried to _kill me_ at my _place of work_ ,” Steve roars, “You-you- all my shit was in the yard! You let that fucking insane redhead throw away the bunny, Buck. Tony showed me the surveillance.”

James pauses, tears threatening to spill from his eyes now, “I didn’t want to. I-the bunny was hard.”

“But not this?”

“This is what I do, Steve. This is who I am.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to do this,” and Steve’s face is so open and sincere that James’s resolve crumples. He isn’t ashamed to admit his own fear; it’s true that this is the only thing he’s good for. S.H.I.E.L.D gave him a purpose; they gave him skills and a family before Steve had ever entered his life. It would seem like the ultimate betrayal to turn his back on the organization and all they’ve done for him for something as naïve and childish as love.

And yet here James is, lowering his weapon.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! I'm not totally finished with this however, it's mostly written so I'll update soon. 
> 
> @starkbrncs on twitter.


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